A study was recently done & it stated that 47% of foreclosed properties are still occupied.
At first sight that stat may surprise you, but not us. What a lot of people don’t know is that banks are not in the home owning business. Banks are primarily in the field of loaning people money. Unfortunately when a mortgage holder does not pay his or her mortgage the bank eventually has to foreclose on the property. When this happens the bank is forced to take back ownership of the property until they sell it or re coupe some of their money back from the sell of the house
What has been found, especially in Trenton is that when a foreclosed house goes vacant the chance of it going into disrepair is a lot higher. Most of the time the bank would rather you still live inside the property even if you had already stopped paying & the foreclosure process has been started. This is to prevent people from breaking in & trashing the property. Often times in bad neighborhoods people will break inside of vacant properties to still copper or homeless people will try to sleep there.
There’s been a lot of talk in the media about people living for free after foreclosure – and even many stories about banks “abandoning” properties.
In those stories, people are avoiding house payments for months, even years.
Man, that sounds great! Let’s all live for free. (wink)
Wait… it can’t be that simple, right?
Right.
A bank would never intentionally neglect collecting the mortgage payments. The only way that might be able to happen is if there were some major mistakes made on behalf of the bank. But you might get lucky! It’s possible, and it’s happened before. However, it’s not exactly legal to avoid payments that you owe, and it can get you in serious trouble. The real question is why do so many foreclosed homes have people still living in them? The important thing to remember is that no one wants the house to be vacant. Like I said earlier vacant properties are targets for people to commit crimes & open to be damaged. Having the house occupied can help maintain the value of the property. This is so because even though the mortgage holder is not paying, the house stands a chance to stay in better condition then if it was vacant. Forclosure laws in some states may take up to 2 years before the full effect kicks in giving the resident a good amount of time before they are forced out.
How To Stay In Your Property During A Foreclosure In Trenton
Beware that not all these options can be used depending on your situation. Always look to receive expert advice to help you in this process.
1) Wait. Although this may not be the best suggestion for some reason it is getting very common. The last thing you want to do is abandon your house once the notice of default shows up. Remember that the proceedings and the process takes months and sometimes years. Don’t give up too early, things can always turn around for the better. On the other hand, do not wait so long that one morning you wake up & the sheriff knocking on your door forcing you to pack your things & leave.
2) Get legal help. In rare cases, the judge can grant stays and delay evictions. This is really only a valid option if you & your attorneys can prove that the bank has neglected a legal requirement during the foreclosure process. Within the past couple years a lot of illegal activities have been found at banks behind the scenes. With this occurring so often we may start to see a trend of homeowners using the court system to get there properties back on the right track. Fighting banks with lawyers is very difficult, expensive and time-consuming, even if you have a very strong case it is still a long shot.
3) Offer a move-out bonus. A lot of times buyers of occupied foreclosure properties spend tons of money on lawyers & other costs of eviction. So the question remains, why would you not save everyones time & expense by taking some of that cash yourself? They call it cash for keys. Yes, it sounds a little greedy, but greasing the wheels helps everything to run just a little more smooth. It may be a big help to the bank & the buyers to not abandon the house to squatters before they are ready to take possession.
Plus, you can help out the bank and the buyers by not abandoning the house to squatters before they’re ready to take possession.
4) Rent it back. As crazy as it sounds some banks will consider having previous homeowners as tenants in their property. However, it is only short-term since they would still want you to pack up & leave when they find someone to purchase the property. Another way is we can purchase the property and rent it back to you in some cases.
We hope that this article was informative & helped you explore your options as a homeowner.
We can’t help everyone, but we might be able to help you.
We buy local Trenton NJ houses like yours from people who need to sell fast.s